We all need Labour’s bold manifesto for change

People are quick to say that it doesn’t matter who gets elected, things never change. At this election, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Labour are offering the people real change from the status quo – and this country couldn’t need it more.

Since the Labour and Conservative manifestoes were released, the Tory lead in the polls has been halved. Are people finally beginning to wake up and demand change?

Labour’s ideas are bold and progressive, despite the tabloid newspapers yelling hysterically to the contrary – they are owned by billionaires with their own self-interest in mind, what else would you expect? The newspapers claim Corbyn’s idea is to take us back to the 1970’s. But it could be worse: social mobility was greater, people could afford housing, education was free, the NHS was not being flogged off to private interests. It seems the likes of the Daily Mail would prefer is to take us back to the 1870’s, complete with Victorian levels of poverty, racism and sexism, and an abhorrent gap between the wealthy and the poor, where you are simply left to die if you cannot afford to feed yourself.

Labour is actually campaigning on a program that puts the interests of ordinary people first – we can no longer say we haven’t got a choice.

Labour’s manifesto gives the country hope. Jeremy Corbyn and his team will renationalise Britain’s railways — the most expensive in Europe, by quite a margin. They will set up a publicly owned energy supplier and take water in England back into public ownership, less money going out of your purse and into the back pockets of shareholders. Labour will invest in the economy and modernise essential services as well as building more houses and offering free childcare. The rich will pay more tax to fund all of this (95% of the population won’t – meanwhile, the Conservative’s have refused to rule out VAT, National Insurance and Income Tax rises that would hit ordinary families), zero hours contracts will be outlawed, giving much-needed job security to workers, and tuition fees will be scrapped to allow all young people the chance to better themselves. All of this along with a much needed £10 per hour living wage and much more.

Meanwhile, The Tory elite-friendly agenda could not be clearer if they plastered on the side of a bus. There’s a seemingly endless pot of money bomb Syria and continue to drop Corporation Tax for big business — but not enough to provide pensioners with winter fuel payments or children with free school lunches so their education is not put at risk by hunger. And now it is not just the young that will suffer under the Tories: the elderly who wish to pass on their property to their children will be hit by what has been labelled a new “Dementia Tax” to pay for social care and the “triple lock” on pensions will be scrapped.

One of the richest countries on earth deserves better than to saddle its youngsters with debt, have its health service run into the ground in preparation for full privatisation, have its public services slashed to within an inch of their lives, with the mutation of public utilities into cash cows for profiteers at the expense of consumers. We are worth more than the sum of the Tory agenda to make a quick buck for their already wealthy mates.

Jeremy Corbyn and his team are offering genuinely popular policies which voters are calling for and desperately need, but these can get lost behind the aggressive vitriol of the media’s vested interests. The Establishment cannot control Corbyn, and that worries them. Corbyn’s program is bold, though far from revolutionary, and offers the majority of Britons the prospect of a much fairer economic settlement and better society.

For a party obsessed with how Labour are going to pay for everything, figures are extremely few and far between in the Conservative manifesto. Perhaps the most remarkable lack of clarity on funding is the promise of £8 billion extra for the NHS – no indication at all is given of where this money is coming from. Theresa May and her team seem to be proceeding with their say as little as they can to as few people as possible tactic. But the Tory attack on pensioners, who traditionally vote Conservative in great numbers, may come at a cost.

Theresa May expects you to vote for her based on slogans, a lack of clarity and misinformation about the opposition. Someone who is in fact “strong and stable” usually does not have to go around reminding people how strong they are. Look through the spin, and see that the Tories only offer more for the 1% with more misery for the rest of us. Labour are offering hope, hope for a better future.

To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain – Louis L’Amour

Three-quarters of newspaper stories about Jeremy Corbyn fail to accurately report his views, an LSE study has found. So get out there and educate those around you, point out the real facts and dispel the misinformation, because Labour’s policies are sensible and much-needed which most people agree with when given the facts impartially – the people have to see that, either now, or later when it will be too late.

It is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that Corbyn’s aims and ideals are passed on to the public in a true and unbiased fashion. United we stand, divided we fall: and the Conservatives and their supporters and media allies will try and divide us.

For the first time, this country has an opportunity to break away from the banker-friendly neoliberal policies which have led to a redistribution of wealth away from the majority to the super-rich. Labour is actually campaigning on a program that puts the interests of ordinary people first – we can no longer say we haven’t got a choice.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime, a chance for the country to vote for real change, a chance for us to reverse the direction this country is going and create a society that works for the many, not just the few. So get out and vote for change, the future is in your hands – take it!

Actor, trained at Birmingham School of Acting - currently flexing vocal chords on the Yorkshire coast. Saxophonist, lover of Musical theatre, jazz, cups of tea and wine. Founder/Editor of The Daily Spectacle.